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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 148 / Thursday, August 5, 2021 / Rules and Regulations provide the allotted time for the public comment period that is specified in the MMPA, APA, and NEPA regulations.
Response: The Service provided the public with a sufficient opportunity to comment on the proposed ITR and draft EA. The numerous, in-depth public comments that the Service received on the proposed ITR modeling analysis appear to corroborate the Services judgment on this issue. ITRs establish important mitigation measures and provide significant conservation benefits to polar bears, and it is important that the Service finish its process and render a decision in a timely manner.
We also note that the commenter has in fact had access to the referenced 57
case studieswhich were provided as part of the administrative record in the Willow litigation in which they are a plaintifffor several months. These studies have also been in the Services Freedom of Information Act reading room for the duration of the proposed ITR comment period. With respect to the Woodruff and Wilson study, the Service gained access to a draft manuscript and preliminary results during the later stages of development of the proposed ITR and thought it was important to include this information as part of the best available scientific evidence. Although we expected a final manuscript would be available for public release prior to publication of the proposed ITR, this did not occur. In the interest of providing information for public review, the Service then developed its own summary of relevant findings and uploaded that summary to the docket as soon as it could. The Service adjusted the assumed AIR
efficacy rate utilized in the ITR process based on this new information. Because the results of this study suggest an efficacy rate lower than that previously assumed, the Services integration of this information resulted in a slight downward refinement of the assumed AIR efficacy rate.
Comment 183: One commenter suggested that the Service should include a list of entities conducting activities under this authorization and a description with the accompanying analysis of expected impacts from these Industry activities in the authorization.
Response: No entities may conduct activities under coverage of this ITR
until they receive an LOA from the Service. The ITR provides sufficient description of the specified activities and those entities that qualify for LOAs.
Comment 184: One commenter suggested that the Service should include a list of specific oil and gas activities that the Service evaluated and
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that would be authorized under LOAs issued under these regulations.
Response: The description of specified activities provided in the ITR
is sufficiently detailed. Additional information is available in AOGAs request.
Comment 185: One commenter suggested that the Service should revise their language to exclude listing specific subsistence communities or organizations that may be consulted during a Plan of Cooperation and add a general requirement in order to avoid potentially excluding other communities or organizations.
Response: Comment noted.
Comment 186: One commenter suggested that the Service should complete government-to-government consultations with Alaska Native communities to ensure that the Service mitigates the impacts on subsistence use of marine mammals prior to finalizing this ITR.
Response: The Service has determined that issuing this ITR would not cause any potential effects that trigger the obligation to engage in government-to-government consultation or government-to-ANCSA Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act corporation consultation. The effects of the Services action is limited; it only authorizes the Level B harassment of small numbers of polar bears. Any resulting effects to individual polar bears would be inherently limited and short-term and, as explained in more detail elsewhere, would not cause more than a negligible impact to the SBS
stock of polar bears and or any unmitigable adverse impacts on the availability of SBS polar bears for subsistence uses. As such, the Service has determined that promulgating this ITR will not have any substantial direct effects on any federally recognized Tribes or ANCSA corporations.
That said, in the interest of cooperation and ensuring that the views and concerns of Alaska Native communities are heard and considered in its decision-making process, the Service sent notification of its proposed action to promulgate the ITR to federally recognized tribes and ANCSA
corporations with interests in the Beaufort ITR area and surrounding areas on May 27, 2021. The Service did not receive any replies indicating interest in government-to-government consultation or government-to-ANCSA corporation consultation. The Service remains open to consulting with these parties at any time, including prior to the issuance of LOAs and further notes the regulatory requirement that LOA applicants conduct their own outreach with
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potentially affected subsistence communities. While the commenter is correct that communications with Industry are not government-togovernment consultations or government-to-ANCSA corporation consultations, such communications have proven to be a productive means of resolving potential conflicts and identifying issues that may warrant formal consultation with the Service.
Comment 187: One commenter suggested that the Service should reconsider whether Industry activities will have an unmitigable adverse impact on subsistence use of marine mammals considering the limit on the harvest of SBS polar bears due to their declining population abundance.
Response: The Service disagrees. The ITR concludes that there will be no unmitigable adverse impacts on the availability of polar bears and has relied on the best scientific information available, monitoring data, locations of hunting areas relative to Industry activities, community consultation, Plans of Cooperation, and harvest records to reach this conclusion.
Comment 188: One commenter suggested that the Service should reconsider whether the addition of new Industry facilities and infrastructure will correlate with an increase in incidental harassment of polar bears.
Response: We disagree. While AOGA
has drawn a contrary conclusion in their Request, the relationship described by the Service between distance to shore and polar bear encounters indicates an increase in coastal infrastructure will increase the number of encounters and subsequent harassment events. This was described at length within the ITR.
Comment 189: Commenters suggested that the Service should clarify their explanation for the lack of an oil spill risk assessment.
Response: Please note that the Service does not authorize the incidental take of marine mammals as the result of illegal actions, such as oil spills. A detailed, activity-specific analysis of potential take arising from a hypothetical oil spill is beyond the scope of this ITR. That said, the Service did consider available oil spill risk assessments to inform its ITR analysis. References to the various materials considered by the Service are provided in the ITR. While we used a timeframe ending in 1999 to present one summary statistic, we also considered data as recent as 2020. BOEMs OSRA
represents the best available information on the risk of oil spills to polar bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea. We detailed a sample of cases of recent onshore oil spills and potential effects on polar bears. The commenter is correct that the
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